UNC Exhibit looks at textbooks role in history

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - The books read by North Carolina
schoolchildren have long been a source of contentious debate, on
topics ranging from slavery to evolution.

A new exhibit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
looks at the role textbooks have played in state history since the
early 1800s.

Items in the exhibit include Civil War-era textbooks published
in Greensboro and Raleigh that defended slavery, and two textbooks
banned in the 1920s for teaching the theory of evolution.

The co-chairman of the state Textbook Commission, Charles
Gaffigan, says there are fewer controversies today, but he says
North Carolina still has an important role in textbook adoption,
since it's one of the country's largest buyers of school books.

The exhibit at the Wilson Library will run through Jan. 31.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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